Arkansas Laws on Landlocked Property: Petition, Easement, and Costs

If you own property in Arkansas with no way to reach a public road or navigable waterway, state law gives you the right to petition the county court for a private road easement across a neighbor’s land. The statutes governing landlocked property in Arkansas sit in Arkansas Code §§ 27-66-401 through 27-66-405, and they lay out a court-supervised process involving written notice, a three-person inspection team, a cash deposit, and a formal evidentiary hearing before any road is established. The road cannot be wider than 50 feet, and it attaches permanently to your parcel. In some situations, a common law easement by necessity or by prescription may also give you access without going through the statutory process.

When You Qualify to Petition

The statute is narrow on purpose. You must have no legal access to any public road or navigable waterway. If you already hold an easement, a deeded right-of-way, or any other usable crossing, you are not landlocked for purposes of § 27-66-401, and the court will not create a second route just because the existing one is inconvenient.¹

One hard limit to know before you spend anything: the county court cannot grant an easement that crosses a railroad right-of-way. If the only feasible route to a public road runs across railroad tracks, this statute will not help you.²

Asking the Neighbor First

You cannot go straight to court. At least 20 days before filing anything, you have to send the neighboring landowner written notice stating the specific dollar amount you are offering to pay for the road. A copy of that notice gets attached to your eventual petition. The point of this step is to give the neighbor a genuine chance to negotiate a private deal.¹

If the neighbor refuses, your petition then has to show three things with specificity: that you gave written notice at least 20 days earlier, that the neighbor refused to grant access, and that you have no legal right to cross the neighbor’s land or otherwise reach a public road. Copies of any abstracts, deeds, or plats you reference must be attached. Vague allegations will not survive the court’s initial review.¹

After filing, you formally serve the neighbor with a summons, the petition and exhibits, and the court’s notice of the preliminary hearing, following the Arkansas Rules of Civil Procedure. If personal service is not possible, the statute allows publication once per week for two consecutive weeks in a newspaper of general circulation, at your expense.¹

The Preliminary Hearing and the Viewers

The county court sets a preliminary hearing that cannot take place earlier than 60 days after the petition is filed. At that hearing, the court checks whether you properly served the neighbor and whether the petition adequately shows notice, refusal, and lack of access. A petition that falls short can be dismissed without prejudice, meaning you can fix the problems and refile.¹

If the petition passes, the court appoints three “viewers” who inspect the proposed route and any alternatives. Each party gets to submit potential names, and the court picks one from each side’s list plus one of its own choosing. The viewers’ job is to decide, by majority, whether the easement is necessary and, if so, to lay out the path that causes the least harm to the neighbor’s property. They file a sworn written report with the county clerk describing the exact route, identifying the land and owners affected, and estimating damages to each owner.³

Damages are measured as the difference in the neighbor’s land value immediately before versus after the easement. That captures more than the strip the road occupies; it reaches the impact on the rest of the parcel. Once the report is filed, each party has at least 10 business days to respond in writing, either accepting the findings or disputing them. The damages figure is often the main fight at the evidentiary hearing.³

The Required Deposit

Before the case can move to the evidentiary hearing, the court issues a preliminary order requiring you to deposit money into the court registry. The deposit has to cover the viewers’ fees and expenses, the professional survey, the estimated damages (both the value taken and harm to the remaining property), and any publication costs if you had to serve by newspaper. Fail to make the deposit and the court can dismiss your case without prejudice; you then have one year to refile.¹

This step surprises many petitioners. Depending on the length of the proposed road and the value of the land involved, the deposit can be substantial.

The Evidentiary Hearing and Final Order

The evidentiary hearing can go forward once at least 60 days have passed since filing, you have complied with the court’s preliminary orders, and you have put up the deposit. Both sides present evidence, call witnesses, and cross-examine. The viewers’ report carries weight but is not the last word.⁴

If the court finds the road is necessary, it issues an order establishing the easement. The order describes the exact route, sets the width at no more than 50 feet, and fixes the final damages owed. The easement is appurtenant to your land, which means it permanently attaches to your parcel and transfers automatically if you sell. The neighbor keeps ownership of the underlying ground but cannot block the road. Any excess from your deposit is returned to you; if the court needs more to cover costs and damages, you will be ordered to deposit more.⁴

What the Easement Lets You Do, and What It Does Not

A court-ordered easement is for travel access. The road is there so you can get to and from your property, not for other commercial or recreational uses beyond what the order specifies. The neighbor keeps ownership of the land beneath the road and can continue using it in any way that does not block your passage.

Maintenance generally falls on you. Keeping the road passable and safe is the easement holder’s obligation, not the neighbor’s. Any improvements must stay within the boundaries set in the court order, both in width and in the authorized scope of use. Expanding the road, paving where paving is not authorized, or using the road for purposes beyond ingress and egress can expose you to liability.

If you are buying landlocked property and the seller already has a court-ordered easement, that easement transfers to you because it is appurtenant. Confirm it by reviewing the court order recorded in the county land records before closing.⁴

What It Will Cost, and the Fee-Shifting Risk

The statutory process is not cheap. Beyond the damages owed to the neighbor, budget for court filing fees, a professional land survey, the viewers’ daily fees, and possibly the neighbor’s attorney’s fees. The court-ordered deposit has to cover estimated costs upfront, and the final bill may exceed the deposit.¹

The fee-shifting rule is the piece most petitioners underestimate. If the neighbor substantially prevails on the disputed issues, the court must award the neighbor reasonable attorney’s fees and costs. “Substantial” success is measured across four factors: the necessity of the road, the route chosen, the width, and the damages award. You can win the easement itself and still owe the neighbor’s legal fees if the court agrees with the neighbor on most of the contested specifics. This is a real deterrent against weak or overreaching petitions.⁴

Common Law Alternatives Worth Checking First

Before filing a statutory petition, check whether your situation fits one of the two common law easements Arkansas recognizes. If either does, you may not owe damages at all.

Easement by Necessity

An easement by necessity can arise when a single tract of land was divided into separate parcels and the division left one parcel without road access. The requirement is prior common ownership. If your parcel was carved out of a larger property and the seller kept the portion with road frontage, you may have an implied easement by necessity across the seller’s retained land. It exists by operation of law from the moment the severance creates the landlocked condition, so no § 27-66-401 petition is needed, though you may still have to go to court to have it formally recognized if the neighbor disputes it.

Prescriptive Easement

A prescriptive easement comes from long, continuous use of someone else’s land without their permission. The use has to be open and obvious, adverse to the owner’s interests, and uninterrupted for seven years under Arkansas’s common law standard. These claims are hard to prove because any period during which the neighbor gave you permission to cross resets the clock. If you have been crossing a neighbor’s land openly and without permission for years, talk to an attorney about whether your use meets the threshold before filing a statutory petition, because a prescriptive easement would not require you to pay damages.

If a Neighbor Blocks an Established Road

Arkansas treats obstruction of a road established under this statute as a Class C misdemeanor. Anyone who blocks the road by felling trees across it, placing barriers, or otherwise making it impassable commits that offense. On top of the criminal charge, the person who blocks the road owes a $100 forfeiture for every day the obstruction remains after they are notified to remove it. The daily penalty adds up quickly and is designed to discourage self-help.⁵

Appealing the County Court’s Decision

Either side can appeal the county court’s decision to the circuit court. Under Arkansas Code § 16-13-201, circuit courts have appellate jurisdiction over all final orders from county courts in civil cases. The appeal is tried de novo, so the circuit court looks at the facts and the law fresh rather than only checking for legal error. That gives the losing party a genuine second opportunity to present the case.⁶

If at any point the county court concludes the circuit court has jurisdiction over the matter, it may stay or dismiss the case without prejudice and let you refile within one year.⁴

1
Justia. Arkansas Code 27-66-401 – Establishment
2
Justia. Arkansas Code 27-66-405 – Limitation of Authority
3
Justia. Arkansas Code 27-66-402 – Duty of Viewers
4
Justia. Arkansas Code 27-66-403 – Court Order
5
Justia. Arkansas Code 27-66-404 – Penalty for Obstructing
6
Justia. Arkansas Code 16-13-201 – Jurisdiction